This section "Puppy Power" came out of a marketing idea [no booing at the back yet - just listen]

The idea was to try and promote Puppy with the help of one of our members who was a marketing professional. We created a separate forum. We called ourselves the A team and basically realised we did not want to sell what we were giving away anyways . . . and also we did not want to be separate from the main forum. Some distros are marketed like a washing powder or have logos on T shirts etc and some are commercial - I believe for example Mepis has $135 million of Microssoft backing (or did I dream that)?

I do believe that getting Puppy into hardware is a good idea. So I want to encourage Raffy who is doing research in this area - in Singapore and the far East . . .

So here are some initial ideas:

Puppy Foundation

1. Goals?

Promotion of Puppy
Creation of hardware based Puppy
Development of Puppy in other languages
Development of Puppy for emerging economies
Preparation of Puppy for Cell processor
Support for Puplets (Puppy unleashed versions)

2. Nomination of officers - that is

You can not nominate a person who is not interested in being in a post and the names can be changed

Chairperson
Secretary (places notes on Wiki and here - arranges meets, also is the contactee)
Registered members (Forum Puppys)

So the first part of the Foundation is some sort of structure and some sort of name . . . a list of candidates . . .

It sounds great! I think puppy should be marketed, it is to good of a thing not to let people know about. On the other hand can you go in to more depth of the kinda marketing that puppy
will take on? Such as will this be a strictly e-commerce thing. Or would people have a notion to
market puppy in there city's and towns, while offering contributions to and for whom it
would be necessary? And if this thing was going to be real, the first and most important
question, who would be treasurer and secretary. These two jobs are the most important.

Or did you all have a simplified idea in mind that would bypass a lot of the troubles
that seem to hound small businesses and self-employed?_________________Heaven is on the way, until then let's get the truth out!

Maybe the Foundation can eventually do everything, like manage the Puppy sites, and finance them?

So far, I've been following the model of Slackware. The guy who develops Slackware has total control. It's a business that he is running, that apparently financially supports him.
The advantage of a one-man-show like that is that it remains very focussed.
Well, consider how successful Slackware is.

Anyway, I'm seriously considering turning over control of the Puppy website to a group of Puppy-enthusiasts one day, and then they would also handle any donations, maybe also CD orders.

So, would that level of eventual responsibility be within the forseeable scope of the Foundation?

My feeling is that Barry would be happiest developing and being supported.
In terms of finance. This would seem to be a primary and achievable goal . . .

Can part of any finance be raised through the application for grants to develop specific ideas or parts of Puppy?

Do we go for sposorship? Donation drives? Grant applications? Bringing money into the equation means we can do more - it gives more freedom and keeps Puppy free. We have to go about it in the right way.

I would like to see BladeH offered grants to develop sections and G2 and Jesse, Ian and others.

I would like to see the Puppy website absorbed into the wiki

This all takes time and organisation.

Ian is right what is the best legal entity? At the moment Puppy is a one man "business" - though I have a feeling Barry is putting more in than what he gets out . . .

And where will it be based legally? I guess Australia but I am better as a developer than as a lawyer so I have no clue.

Is it going to be a non-for-profit foundation?

The location and the financial model are important from the taxation/paperwork point of view.

How does a world wide foundation do it's accounting? If the foundation distributes the CD's: Is there a single account somewhere and funds to produce the CD's / gadgetry flow to whoever does the actual setup and shipping, web hosting, etc?

I think that we should work on a charter that will define the purpose, goals, mission, benefits, responsibilities, scope, structure, financials, participation, etc.

Will the administrative organization take resources from the Puppy development?

Puppy is small, simple and it works. I think that the foundation should also light so it does not crush puppy under.

Actually I think that we should start by agreeing what IS puppy:

A distribution? a metadistribution? A client side distro? a nitch OS or a general purpose one?

I think that the puppy mission is clear my hope is that the expectations stay aligned with the mission.

I have to agree with rarsa! And I also think it should be a non-profit project.
With the funds going towards web space and development of applications
and upgrades. Simply put we need a council, and if this is to be taken seriously
we should cooperate as much as possible with Barry K.
When I had asked him, in the chatroom some time back, he implied he would stick with puppy
for a couple more years and he mentioned it in his post above.
Is there going to be a council to make sure puppy goes in the right direction, and not down the stinker? I think we should setup a time in the chatroom for all interested and negotiate certain tasks to cover before getting in over one's head.
The main things are covering legality, I'm sure that BK, could let us in on how he has been
doing it, and "possibly" integrating a council into what he has got, with a final takeover being when he is ready and the "council" is ready
Am I on track? Or does anybody else have better ideas?_________________Heaven is on the way, until then let's get the truth out!

The question that answers many legal questions is place where to register the foundation. Once this is decided, the local laws and regulations become the starting point.

However, we cant waste too much time in finding out the best place. Delaware has been a popular place for corporations (which is near John M), and Barry has Perth, especially since the Linux Australia group is active there. Malaysia has been active in Cyberlaw research, but we can say the same for other countries, esp in Europe. So I guess access will be the primary consideration here.

Members can then find out how to register an offshore presence of the foundation in their own country.

I may be jumping far forward here, but I think I saw Barry giving a go-ahead signal above. Getting started with an entity seems burdensome and is mostly paper work, while getting the foundation working is easy, as people like you have been doing it. Just put the broad ideas on paper.

If you want to compare places of registration, just start a new thread on it.

Has anyone approached Netscape to see if they would pay The Puppy Collective to make a cd that someone could pop into thier 'puter and be online with out having to install a program they may not want.
I know this goes against the concept but it could help The Puppy get the $$$$ it needs to develop. If they just would pay $1 for everyone who signed up that would be a great help?
Try Juno or NetZero too. They flood the mail boxes with CDs. You could explain that they could take there account where every a 'puter with a modem or HSI is.

OK guys and gals let me have it.

EDIT: I was suggested to POST here after starting a post elsewhere. Please forgive me for ditto.

Flash is already spending a lot of time organizing things here, so I guess he is the person you're looking for. (Or I might have misinterpreted your idea of "internal structure".)

Although these are the officers, creating the foundation will require incorporators (or are they called trustees in your country?). You may have to post the minimum qualifications for these positions (like, could they be expatriates? what % of total number can be expatriates?).

How much fund should be in before it can be registered?

If there are qualifications by officer's post, that will be even better.

Note: The assumption of the above is that the Foundation gets registered in your country (UK).

1. promote Puppy to individuals and institutions looking for alternative computing solutions (the non-profit character is essential to bridge barriers to the adoption of an unknown but very economical/promising system; plus, if it is a commercial entity, it can simply be bought by a bigger entity);

2. provide service support to users and funding for continued software development (ex, phone support, and the writing of device drivers when the makers don't write them for Puppy);

3. cooperate with providers of hardware and software that use or are useful for Puppy (ex, providers of thin PCs, Java clients, and all the other software used in Puppy).

How revenues are raised by a non-profit will be specified by local laws - subscription, membership fees and donations are examples. Without revenues, the entity can't do its mission...

Please pardon my early post, I've been thinking about this for some time

PS - One lawyer I consulted said that things may run more slowly with a non-profit, but she could be assuming a centralized decision-making structure. With this non-profit, we intend to make members' actions autonomous and driven by volunteering, just the way things are moving now. We just try to set broad goals and policies, and combine resources whenever appropriate.